Black Toes

I'm virtrually moving

2005-03-17T22:04:00.000-08:00

Well, after some deliberation, I've decided to leave blogger for another host. My blog is called Front Range Runner, and the toe-freaks can't get hits to my blog now...

Here's the new link:

http://trailrunner.typepad.com/

If you subscribe, please change your feed accordingly!

Hope to see you over at typepad!

quickie post

2005-03-17T20:48:00.000-08:00

Ran 5 mi today. Did 8:44/mi. Sort of windy.

more tomorrow..

Slack ass..

2005-03-16T20:45:00.000-08:00

With respect to running, that is. Today was crazy - I wrote a visualization program to do some analysis of my weather output, went to another on-site job interview (for a defense job in Boulder), and then followed that all up with a 2.5 hour meeting with my advisors at NCAR where I presented my results after getting them finished 15 minutes before my interview. After all that, I didn't have the energy or the time to go for a tempo run. That, and my son has been a real handful lately.

Luckily I can work from home tomorrow, so I'll be able to head out for a run - maybe even a trail run.

I figure it wouldn't kill me to miss a day and I could help my wife out since she wasn't feeling good and had a hyper infant on her hands all day. On the job front, hopefully I'll hear back next week. I'm really hoping for one company in particular, but if we can stay in Denver, I'll be pretty happy. It looks like the salaries will be all the same, too - which makes my decision easier. The last interview is next week in New Orleans with Shell Oil's Exploration and Production division. Looks like that BS in Engineering Physics is paying off finally...

on the road again

2005-03-16T06:29:00.000-08:00

Monday was a day off for running - which was pretty handy because I had an interview most of the day. Yesterday was my 6 mile run, and it was gorgeous outside - mid 40's, sunny, and pretty dry outside save a couple of ice patches and puddles. I did a flatter course - out to Golden High School and the Juvinile Detention center (we have the county jail, an minimum security prison, and a juvi center all about 2 miles from each other). There was a slight headwind combined with a small grade on the way out, but nothing too bad. The turn around was nice because of the descent and tailwind. All in all - 6 miles at 8:35/mi. I'm pretty pleased with that, and I felt good - not out of breath or sore. In fact, the only thing that felt wierd was my leg turnover. I've been trying to get a faster cadence going when I run and minimizing my vertical bounce. Other than that, my cardiovascular system felt great.

Run summary:
distance: 6 miles
pace: 8:35 min/mi
time: 51:30 minutes
shoes: Asics Gel Evolution 4E (so I can remember to cycle it out!)

Today is a tempo run at the track: 45 minutes at 7:40 min/mi. We'll see how that goes...

A question to the RBF about treadmills

2005-03-15T12:15:00.000-08:00

Recently my wife informed me that she wanted to get me a treadmill when I got a real job (not being a grad student!). Since they're not cheap, I figure I should start researching them now. I've been looking at many of the websites and reading some stuff in Consumer Reports, but I know some of you in the RBF have treadmills and I was wondering if you had any advice? So far I've seen that you should get one with a longer base and a good motor (~3 HP). Many of the other ones I've seen have the HR feature that I see Marisa write about. The HR feature looks like a great tool, and I think I would like to get one that has that.

So, any advice, words of warning, etc? I have about two months before I'll start work, so I figure that's plenty of time to start looking around.

I'm thinking it'll be a good tool for me because:

* we have a baby that needs watching (and we want more kids, too).

* I HATE going to gyms to run because of the 20-30 minute rule

* I really want to start training for ultra distance events (50 km - 50 mile - 100 km events) and this is one of the only ways I can feasibly train for long distances and still be a good husband/dad.

If I get one, I'm totally putting it in front of the TV so I can watch movies + cartoons while I run. No more looking at a mirror or having to look at everyone else work out.

Thanks!

sorry for being a slacker but..

2005-03-14T19:04:00.000-08:00

I've been pretty busy with the whole find a job thing and getting my last experiments running.

I had an interview for a big ol' defense contractor here in Denver. I'm really hoping and praying that I get this one because it would be a really cool job and I wouldn't have to move away from here. I absolutely love Colorado- so much to do!

Anyway, I went for my 10 miler yesterday and had a blast. The first five miles were the slower ones, as there was plenty of hill work do be done - a fact of life of living where I do. The good thing was that although I was almost always on some incline for the first couple of miles, I managed to average 9:05/mi for the first half. If I can swing that for my half next month - I'll be under 4:00!! And I know for a fact the upcoming race is pretty flat with a net descent of 120' over 13 miles.
The next 5 miles were significantly faster - in the mid 8/mi range. This was because I was running on flats for most of it (the descent was short). All in all I felt as if I could have kept going, but I felt as if the 10 miles would never end. Our awesome weather of Saturday came to an abrupt end as a big continental polar air mass crashed into the mountains from the north east. When that happens the cold air sort of sloshes up against the Rockies and gives us up-slope snow and generally cold temperatures. We have a couple inches of snow outside, but my run was pretty pleasant. It was one second off from last week's long run, but I think the hills were harder than the headwinds last week.

One thing I've been amazed with this week is Coach Benson's pace charts from the latest Running Times. My intervals were off by ~ 5 seconds / 400 meters, and my long run (which was supposed to be at 60-75% PE) were pretty much dead on (between 9:41/mi and 8:17 mi). I was nearly right on the center at 8:53/mi.

Slaker-ella, I mean my wife went for her run yesterday, but has yet to update her blog about it... She did pretty well, and ran on an indoor track since she's not all about bundling up and running in the cold. I really get a kick out of it. Probably why I really like XC skiing, too. As if yesterday weren't cool enough - my wife found the latest issue of Marathon and Beyond magazine at B&N yesterday before we went to Mass. It has a great article about balancing life, career, family & distance training AND it's funny, too! Plus, on the way home from Mass, John didn't even so much as cry a peep. He just slept all the way home (which is a first in the last couple of months). All his baby clothes now smell of incense, though.

Today was my off day - I went to my interview all day and played with the baby. Since he's a tiny giant at 24 lbs. I count playing with him as weight training. He's toned my arms pretty well in the last couple of months (really!). I took her down to Littleton to get her some quilt supplies. There's an awesome running store in Littleton (the Boulder Running Company), and I found some trail running shorts 40% off! They'll come in handy as soon as the weather goes back to sunny and warm.

Tomorrow - I don't know what I have to do, but I do know I have to run. Should be fun. I'll get some work done since I have two more interviews coming up, too. And I'll have to finish the second DVD of the first season of the Kids in the Hall. Brynne also informed me that when I get a job she'll get me a treadmill! Rock! I'm so stoked! I can run & spend time with the family. I'll be able to bang out runs to Family Guy, Futurama, KITH, Simpsons, etc.

Congratulations to Jon on his race this weekend, and good luck to Jank on his tri training. Best of luck to all y'all in your training endeavors this week!

Run summary:
10 miles
8:53 min/mi

Saturday!

2005-03-12T19:47:00.000-08:00

I went for a morning group run at the local running store. It was pretty fun, but few people showed up because there is a largish race going on here in Denver. We ended up doing about 3.3 miles at 9:41/mi, which was fine, because it was super easy! After that, my wife and I walked around downtown Golden running errands and having fun. We're about to have a massive cold front pass through, so there was some fantastic lenticular cloud formations being caused by the mountains.

Here's one caused by Lookout Mountain & Mt. Zion:

Here's another one caused by some of the foothills between here and Boulder.

After out five miles of walking (the baby slept through most of the afternoon), we went down to hang out with some friends of mine from college. It was a nice relaxing day and I'm feeling pretty good for my 10 miler tomorrow morning. I wonder just how much snow we're going to get (we're forecasted to get 3-6 inches tonight). Funny that it was in the 60's this afternoon. Gotta love frontal passage.

Pictures!

2005-03-11T20:34:00.000-08:00

Here's some pics from today's trail run at Betasso Preserve:

Some broken farm equipment from earlier this century - at the trailhead:

Some conifers at the trailhead, looking west towards Nederland:

Looking north towards the Lyons formation. This is the direction that the loop is:

Here's a picture of a tired me after the run. Ok, not really tired, just sweaty from wearing too much Coolmax:

And finally, a beautiful mountain wave that I caught coming out of work this evening:

Tonight was great - the family went down to the local NY style pizza place here in downtown Golden. It's pretty good - and quite busy on a friday night with Mines students (where I went to college) and locals. Pizza is really my weakness. At least it doesn't take time off your life like cigarettes. Pizza is one of the main reasons I run (that, and it's fun).

Springtime in the Rockies!

2005-03-11T12:11:00.000-08:00

It's days like today that make me want to never leave the Front Range. It's in the mid sixties today with calm winds. I took advantange of the the fact that:

a) I'm a graduate student - and can take time out during the day (because I work until 2 am most days)

b) It's freaking beautiful outside!

and

c) one of the RAID drives is acting wack

and decided to go running at Betasso Preserve over lunch. I wore my longsleve running shirt, but I seriously considered taking it off at some points on the run and shocking the poor old couple on the trail with my frightful cyclist tan. I didn't.

The trail was sloppy in parts, but all in all, quite dry and packed down. It's a nice little climb (~300-400 ft vertical) and 3.2 miles around. I don't know how long it took me, because my Forerunner ate all its batteries after 1 mile, but that's probably all the better. Sometimes it's fun just to go out and run - nothing but shoes and clothes.

Anyway, it was wonderful - there was almost no-one else up there, and the skies were blue and pristine. A great lunchtime trail/altitude work-out (it's at ~7000 ft ASL).

I took some pictures, but I don't have access to a USB port right now since my laptop is down and my camera is still in my backpack. I'll post them later tonight. I did get to see some nifty mountain lion paw prints on some of the muddier parts of the trail. Those things ar enormous!

Yesterday I took the day off from running. Didn't sleep well the night before and my knee was bothering me. I think it was just a slightly tight IT band - I did 2 minutes on the roller and all was well with my legs. Tomorrow is the group run with the Lakewood Runner's Roost group. It'll be a good 4 miles - and since it's a social group it'll keep my pace down. I want to keep it slow so I can do well on my 10 miler this Sunday.

Pretty toes, pretty black toes, pretty toes to eat = porn?

2005-03-09T21:50:00.000-08:00

I took a look at the referals to this blog. I had high hopes that most of my links were due to

a) The St. Blogs parish (a grouping of Catholic blogs)

or

b) other running blogs in the RBF...

I was so wrong. Apparently, it seems that many of my hits are due to people looking for pretty toes, pretty black toes, or pretty toes to eat.

If you're looking for toe porn or pictures of toes, you've come to the wrong place. Maybe I'll post a picture of my black toe, though. Half of the nail just fell off. And I'd hate for all you pretty/black/pretty black toe searchers to come away empty handed (so to speak)...

I think my favorite search that lead to this blog was pretty toes to eat.

That's awesome.

fun with intervals tonight!

2005-03-09T20:45:00.000-08:00

Went to the rec center here in town tonight to do some intervals. I was looking towards the experience with some trepidation, as my last attempt at intervals failed some 3 minutes into the endeavor. I warmed up with a 0.25 mile run at a nice 8 min/mi pace before breaking into 0.25 mile intervals, punctuated with 0.125 mile walking breaks in between. I ended up doing 6x400 tonight; I'll ramp it up each week until I'm doing 10x400. I was pretty fun, and I stayed quite consistent through the entire ordeal. I averaged 6:13 min/mi for my laps (I measured each 0.0625 mi splits). All in all I was quite happy, and it didn't even feel like I was doing low sixes! I thought I was doing medium 7's or somewhere around there.

Check out Brynne's site for her fun workout, tonight...

After that, we headed up to Boulder for Boulder Running Company's Spring Women's night. Brynne got her makeup done, and saved lots of money on running clothing - even getting free Hind runnning shorts that are really nice. The only sucky thing was that men weren't allowed in - even though there were 20 mph winds and several fathers with small kids/babies that were milling around outside.

An awesome end to a great day!

bottles & buses

2005-03-09T14:08:00.000-08:00

Has anyone else tried out the new Ultimate Directions Fastdraw?

I really like it, and it doesn't leak like the older ones did. Plus, you can close it by bending the little nubbin with you lips and it closes back up, and it just looks plain nifty.

And for you viewing pleasure, here's a picture of a repair truck from a bicycle repair shop in Denver - I like the Yellow Submarine theme:

Shoely goodness

2005-03-09T13:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's run was awesome. In the recent issue of Running Times they have an article about pacing by Coach Benson. It's a pretty good article and it has information about how to pace yourself by percieved exertion. I think I found my proper pace grouping, and I tested it out last night. Yesterday's run was a nice & easy 6 miler at a 9:05/mi pace. I was feeling pretty good for the whole run, and could have kept a pretty good conversation going (if there was someone to talk to). I also checked by breathing during the run and it wasn't labored at all. So I think ~9 min/mi is a good pace for my easier runs. Today I have to do 9x400s at the Rec Center here in town. I'm hoping to do 7:30/mi, which I think would be pretty feasible for me. We'll see what happens.

Happily, my new shoes arived yesterday afternoon and I got another pair to rotate out. It finally happened: I have multiple pairs of shoes for training and racing since I run on 2-3 consecutive days. I'll have to recycle my old Asics Gel Evolutions to make some space.

On the job front, I also got some good news. I've heard back from another company here in the Denver Metro area (also in the defense aerospace field), so that might give me another option for sticking around the front range. As of now, I have a site interview next Monday morning, Tuesday morning, and I'm flying to New Orleans the next Monday for a site interview. I hope a good offer comes from all this travelling.

While I was running yesterday, I started thinking about Divine Madness, a Boulder CO based runng cult. Their leader eschews normal medical exams, and instead determines all he needs to know by pulling on their arms. They do lots of ultra races around the US, and one of their runners died two years ago after a 200 mile race. How many towns have an ultra running cult? It's pretty creepy - since the leader tells the members whom to sleep with for optimal performance. Whenever I'm running on the trails around Boulder I wonder if some of the really dazed looking greyhound types speeding by are one of the cult members :)

Lastly, I've addded a Bloglines subscribe button at the bottom of the side bar. Feel free to click on it to subscribe to me, hint, hint.

On the seventh day I rested...

2005-03-07T20:32:00.000-08:00

Today was a rest day (finally!). In looking back at the past week, I think I went out to fast on Saturday's run and ended up paying for it yesterday. I did a little 5 mile recovery walk with the family today (actually, I walked while Brynne ran whilst I pushed the stroller). Plus, we got money back from the IRS (not like past years...).

It was a beautiful day today - sunny and warm, albeit a little windy - but that's to be expected this time of year in the Front Range. My new shoes also arrived - the glorious & stable Asics! To top it all off, Brynne cooked a lovely whole chicken in our rotisserie with mashed potatoes. It was all quite healthy and tasty.

Tomorrow I'm going to run, but looking at the weather forecast, I might be running on the little 1/16th mile track at the recreation center here in town. I don't feel like bothering with 20-30 mph winds. It also looks like I'll be doing the Greenland Trail 12.5 km (instead of the originally intended 50 km). It'll be a nice recovery after the half marathon in Littleton on the 3rd of next month.

As it is now, my models are running at a supercomputer at NCAR and all is well with the world. I just need to get a couple more chapters done for my thesis and everything will be peachy. I also have another site interview - so there is a decent chance I may not have to move from Colorado - which has really become my adopted home state (I've lived here longer than anywhere else).

Have a good night and have a great training week!

Misplaced priorities

2005-03-06T22:25:00.000-08:00

I was reading some of the blogs in the RBF about looking back at the past year and assessing how people judged themselves versus their goals. I think I've been pretty good about my running this year (and last year). I've been sick twice, but each time climbed back on the trail and kept going. One thing I've noticed though is that I always seem to make time for running and what-not, but have not been very good with regards to spiritual matters - which are more important.

I think if I have the time to go running and get my things ready for the run, then I should have time to say a Rosary or read the Bible a bit. I go to Mass each week (I wish I could go to daily Mass), but I feel I've been sort of just going through the motions - go to confession, go to Mass, etc. It is Lent and thus it's a good time for self-assessment - seeing how we're doing living. On a good note, we got rid of TV entirely (the only thing we watch is movies we get from NetFlix - no broadcast anything). I can honestly say giving up TV was a great choice.

On a more running focused note, my long run went decently today. I headed out to the Wheat Ridge Greenbelt trail (again!) for my run. It was pretty nice out today - mid 60's, with light winds. Unfortunately, those light winds became strong winds after I turned around, and the strong headwind messed with my run somewhat. I definitely slowed down my pace for the last 4 miles or so. All in all though I was quite happy as I ran my 9 miles at a sub 9 min/mi pace. I think I may have been a little to excited yesterday and should have tempered my speed a little better last evening. Oh well, things to fix for next week.

No runs tomorrow - just playing with the baby in the pool...

Run Summary
Distance: 9 mi
Pace: 8:52 min/mi (woo-hoo! Sub two hour half marathon? Who knows!)
Time: 1:19:48 hours (79 minutes and 48 seconds). Would have done better but strong 20 mph headwind during last half of run. Stupid northerlies that shifted to westerlies...

Pizza Power: is pizza an alternative & untapped fuel source?

2005-03-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

Two pizzas in two days! To whom to I owe this pleasure: my wife.

Yesterday was awesome - A good meeting with my advisor and the discovery that my REI dividends were usable. I got a nifty REI backpack for day hikes and commuting. It fits all my running gear + other goodies. I was supposed to go swimming last night, but that fell through when I got to the pool only to discover it was closing in 15 minutes. Instead we went to a new NY style pizza place that opened in downtown Golden. It was awesome and as good as some of the little local places I ate at when I lived in the Village growing up. In some freakish turn of events I was absolutely ravenous last night - and ate most of a large pizza. Probably because it had no meat and was pretty thin. I was even amazed at how much I was able to eat. I attribute my success in todays run to yesterday's pizza.

Today I was supposed to do 6 miles. Luckily, my wife needed some yarn for a new project, and that meant I could persude her to go running at Washington Park in downtown Denver. So, we hit a couple yarn stores and went to the park. I didn't jackrabbit this time, and was able to stay fairly consistent over the 6 miles. I was able to do them in 49:33, so that's pretty good for me - it was an endurance run, and I felt really good. No stiches, no pains, no breathing problems. That means I've dropped my times by more than a minute in less than 6 months. I may be able to break 2 hrs on a half marathon now.

It was gorgeous and there were some southerlies at the park, so it made for an effort in some spots, but was better than the winds in Golden. They have a crushed gravel trail that goes around the park and is 2.65 miles around. It's pretty soft, so I think I'm going to try to run there once or twice a month.

The second pizza was homemade. My wife made organic pizzas with garlic, tomatoes, chicken Italian sausage, and fresh mozzerella cheese. Quite a good way to replenish calories after a nice run.

Run summary:
distance: 6 miles
time: 49:33 minutes
pace: 8:17 minutes/mi

PS: April - I downed 4 liters of water before my run and had no problems. I think if anything I was very well hydrated before my run.

Another good run!

2005-03-03T20:37:00.000-08:00

I had an active recovery day today. I decided to relieve Brynne of the baby for 40 minutes and took him running with me while she ran on her own. We went on the Wheat Ridge path again, but this time I pushed John in his stroller. It was pretty nice not having to negotiate any hills in it. As for my pace, I think last week was sort of a fluke, because I took it pretty easy and was able to manage 8:56/mi for 4 miles. I didn't even feel out of breath or tired at the end. Maybe this means I will reach my goal of breaking under 2 hours for my half marathon a month from today. I certainly hope so...

And the day was made even better by dinner and desert. Waffle fries and Quorn nuggets (mycoprotien formed into chicken nuggets -they're awesome). I followed that off with soy vanilla ice cream on top of girl scout cookies. And I checked my email tonight and found out I have been invited to another interview. Maybe getting a decent job in industry isn't that far off.

So, what started off as a crappy week has turned pretty awesome. Maybe I can bang out my 9 miler this Sunday at a good pace, too. Oh, and my son fell asleep on me tonight, which was great. I love it when he does that.

Run Summary:
distance: 4.48 miles
time: 40 minutes
pace: 8:56 min/mi

Tempo day

2005-03-02T19:41:00.000-08:00

I always look towards days where I have tempo or interval work with a sense of excitement and dread. Excitement that it'll in some way make me a faster runner and dread that it'll probably suck at sometime. Today was a tempo day, and my needed running time was 40 minutes, so it wasn't too long. I remember doing 60 and 70 minute tempo runs that were kind of hard -especially since there was usually some extended climbing involved.

Today I decided to run on the Wheat Ridge Greenbelt trail. It's basically a trail that runs from Golden out to Commerce City (think industrial ghetto: lots of porn shops, junk yards, and bars) and down to Cherry Creek (think the antithesis of Commmerce City - the place where they have $200,000 Maserati's parked in the mall and valet parking to boot). What's especially nice about this path is the the lack of any topographic features - it's pretty flat and has pleasant scenery around it.

So - after an exciting day of doctor's appointments and doing some work, I headed down to one of the trailheads at dusk. It was pretty nice, and I got to see the beer train!

Toot, toot - here comes the beer train!

It was pretty nice and empty on the trail, save for many rabbits. Perhaps they were running from me because I was wearing my bunny shorts (the new Nikes).

Besides, where else can your run take you past enourmous silos of hops and one of the largest beer factories?

All in all it was a good run. I jackrabbited the first part of the run and went out too fast initially - 7:45/mi for the first mile and half. I found a good pace and was able to keep it in the low eights for the rest of the run. All in all, I was pretty happy with my pace.

I don't think I'll be very sore for tomorrow's run. I'm pretty excited about my decreasing paces, because earlier this winter I was doing tempo runs in the low 9:00/mi range, and I've almost dropped a minute in 3 months. Pretty good for 6000 ft in my book.

Run summary:
distance: 4.83 miles
pace: 8:17 min/mi
time: 40 minutes

I've created a monster!

2005-03-02T19:36:00.000-08:00

Apparently getting the nifty running clothes for Brynne started something. We went to Boulder Running Company and she proceeded to get some pretty nice shorts and tops. Including pieces of running clothes that were not in pink. It's funny that she convinced me to start wearing Coolmax and other wicking fibers when she had none of her own. Luckily, this sad situation has been resolved, and I think she has quite a nice wardrobe. I was also floating off the ground when she told me this afternoon that running is adictive.

Man, did I marry the right woman or what?

obeisity in the NFL?

2005-03-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

Not so much related to running, but rather about athletics in general. According to an article to appear in JAMA, obeisity is rampant in the NFL. I've heard anecdotal evidence that the average lifespan of an NFL player is slightly higher than that of lifespans in some underdeveloped countries. I know a lot of those guys life weights, but a lot of them look just plain fat.

New shorts!

2005-03-01T14:11:00.000-08:00

I got two new pairs of running shorts this week: some Coolmax running shorts from Brooks and some Nike DriFit runnig shorts. Both are really comfortable, but the Nikes are really comfortable. It's like they took the softest part of the softest animal...

and skinned it.

Then used it for the liner in these shorts.

It's Nike, so I wouldn't put it past them to make their shorts of out bunnies, but they're so comfortable that I'll still buy them.

A spectacular morning run

2005-03-01T10:21:00.000-08:00

I finally dragged my lazy butt out of bed at 5:50 AM this morning to go running. Knowing that today would be really busy, I decided to just knock my run out in the morning instead of trying to squeeze it in later on (especially since Brynne has to go running today, too).

Anyway, I head out after digging around for some cold-weather gear in the dark at about 6 am. Just in time to catch the sunrise over the mesas that demarcate Golden from metro Denver (and blog the smog, too!). The thing about running in Golden is the hills here. It's not gently sloping like Boulder - Golden is very hilly, since it's situated in a valley and you basically have to climb everywhere in town. Which made me that much happier when I looked at my splits today. I did my first three miles at 9:14/mi, and my last three miles at 9:15/mi. Pretty good considering the wacky topology of the course I was running. I did an urban (if you can really call Golden urban) route today, running near places where I used to live, and around the school. I also got to see the CC team from the local HS running too, which was kind of cool. All in all, it was just a nice brisk morning run, and I think I'll have to repeat it tomorrow when I do my tempo run for the week.

I also realized something during my run: I only have two regrets in my life - taking Spanish in high school instead of taking Latin, and going out for wrestling instead of running cross country. Oh well... could be much worse in the whole scheme of things. The run was nicely capped off by coming home to playing with a very happy 8 month old (it's his 8 mo. birthday today) before heading off to work. And I even brewed an awesome cup of coffee with my French press! It wasn't watery like yesterday.

All that would make this day better would be a job offer, but I think those are still a ways off...

Run Summary:
distance: 6 mi
time: 55:25 minutes (supposed to be 55 min, but just wanted to watch my Forerunner tick over to 6 miles)
pace: 9:14/mi (first three miles), 9:15/mi (last three miles)
elevation change: +/- 300 ft or so.

My weather models have decided to work!!

2005-02-28T14:38:00.000-08:00

I know this doesn't have jack to do with running, but I've been busting my ass for the last week and a half trying to get WRF to work (Weather Research and Forecasting). Anyway, I have been doing my graduate work on the impacts of land surface moisture on mesoscale (20-200 km) weather forecasts. I use this fancy new weather model to do my forecasts, and usually run my models on a Beowulf cluster of 100 processors. However, it wasn't cutting it, so I had to move all my stuff over to my account at the National Center for Atmospheric Research here in Colorado.

After much fussing, programming, swearing, complaining, and debugging - it looks like my models are running! I might just get my masters thesis after all!

What's funny was I'm now using the processors I worked on when I was an microprocessor engineer at IBM (Power 4 clusters).

Pinky - not a commie, just a runner

2005-02-27T20:46:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture of Brynne modeling her new running fashion aquisitions. I sort of didn't give her a chance to object and bought it anyway because I thought it was awesome looking.

I think she'll be pretty styling for the Mother's Day Title 9 9k in Boulder. She'll also be modeling the Chariot CTS jogging stroller, too. She was able to enter in the Moms+Baby catagory. The little guy is pretty cool on runs - he just plays and coos.

If you're interested, here's the coolest jogging/skiing/biking/hiking stroller on the planet: Chariot CTS strollers.

Woot!

2005-02-27T19:38:00.000-08:00

Today was an awesome day - we started out with attending Mass, where both officiating priests were enamoured with our baby. He's quite the popular little guy. After Mass, we decided to go for some coffee at the local German bakery - and John cut his third tooth! Just one more and he'll be done for a while (another month or so). After the coffee and tooth break - we headed up to Boulder for an afternoon on the Pearl Street Mall (which if you live in Vermont is what the Burlington Outdoor Mall was based on). Brynne got a super cute pink Nike DriFit top and matching black shorts with pink stripes down the side. I'm slowly building up her collection of running clothes. I'll get her to go trail running with me yet! We had lunch in Boulder and bought me a cool French press coffee maker for my morning coffee.

After Boulder, we came back home and I went running to cap off my week. Today I was supposed to run 8 miles, and it went pretty well. I'd been fixing to do some hills lately, so I started off at the base of Mt. Zion, where my alma mater's giant illuminated M is located.

I ran up to the M from the parking lot (about 6000 ft.), and topped out at around 7000 ft after 23 minutes. I turned around at the M and started the run back down. It's a pretty taxing climb - it hangs around 8-10 % for most of the run. After getting back to the parking lot I decided to run on some of the paved trails around Golden. I went running to the wealthy hippie commune near the golf course and turned around (community housing for people with $$$).

I finished my run with a pretty decent pace for me (considering I haven't been doing much in the way of hills lately, other than living in the front range).

All in all, an awesome run and a great dinner afterwards: it involved waffle fries and turkey burgers. It's awesome to be married to a woman who feeds my addiction. I don't know what I'd do without her. I'll post a picture of her in her new outfit soon - she's my running muse.

Run summary:
distance: 8 miles
time: 67 minutes
pace: 9:38 minute/miles
elevation: ~ +1300 ft vertical

woo-hoo!

2005-02-26T18:14:00.000-08:00

My shoes are finally coming from Road Runner Sports! I got a Nike Tailwind inertial distance meter, but it wasn't working. So, I sent it back and ordered new shoes. My old ones have a couple of hundred miles on them and have served me well since September 26, 2004. Thought it was about time to retire them.

So, my Asics Gel Evolutions should be coming sometime this week!

Plus, my run today was awesome. We took the baby to swim class today, but he was fairly zonked out from playing in bed this morning. Downed some coffee (still some shred of a cyclist left in me) and went for my 50 minute run.

I was able to do 8:39/mi for the first 3 miles and 9:00/mi for the last 2.67 miles. I think that is due to the topography of Golden. I ran out along beer canyon (basically, the valley where Coors beer is made).

There is a slight slope downwards from where I live (at 5900 ft) towards Arvada, which is a couple of hundred feet lower. The air smelled very strongly of hops and beer, which is sort of nasty. You do get used to it though. The worst was rugby practice in college: doing suicides while the air reeks of hops.

All in all it was a pretty good run. Lots of people out running, very sunny, and some fly-fishers in Clear Creek, too. I also discovered that the Chemical Brothers make for excellent motivational music.

Run Summary:
Distance: 5.67 mi
Time: 50 minutes
Pace: 8:49 min/mi

We'll see how I do on tomorrow's 80 minute run...

Friday cross training involved pizza

2005-02-26T07:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my off day/cross training day. I was supposed to go swimming for 20 minutes, but instead ate pizza and played with the baby all day.

Works out to be the same in the scheme of things.

Today I'll run 5 miles for in anticipation of my 8 miler tomorrow. I'm getting ready for the April 3 Platte River Trail half marathon.

My baby's pimpin' ride

2005-02-24T19:32:00.000-08:00

Went running with the little bear today. He was having fun for the first half, and then fell asleep for the second half. Very nice run, and I think he enjoyed it too. It was a run over rolling terrain, so I think that helped him get to sleep.

That's his Escalade of baby strollers: the Chariot CTS (Child transport system). It's also his primary means of convayance when we go XC skiing or snowshoeing.

All in all, I did 4.25 miles in 40 minutes (9:26/mi). Pretty good considering the climbing and the pushing of a stroller with a 24 lb. baby inside...

Summary:

4.25 miles
40:00 minutes
9:26 minute/miles

A great day

2005-02-23T18:11:00.000-08:00

Well, my weather models still are broken, but luckily, other things happened today that made it a great day.

First, when I arrived at my desk this morning, I recieved an e-mail from Shell Oil inviting me to a site interview in New Orleans (for an exploration geophysicist position). Apparently the campus interview was fairly good, because I recieved a response within 48 hours of my interview. Plus, they're putting us up at a really nice hotel for this interview. Also, I had an interview with Raytheon today, and that went really well. It looks like I might have more than one job offer!! Now I just need to hear back from Northrop Grumman.

Who ever thought the defense & oil industry would be interested in me. It's a good time to be a scientist!

Anyway, my run today was pretty decent. I did a 40 minute run today, and I went out with the Forerunner, and as usual, it performed wonderfully. I did 4.33 miles in 40 min, so that works out to about 9:15/mi. I'll have to see what I have to do tomorrow.

Today's run summary:
40 minutes
4.33 miles
9:15 min/mi

A break in the clouds

2005-02-22T21:27:00.000-08:00

Well, my hellish week is slowly drawing to a close. The running has been a bit spotty over the last two weeks. First I was finishing off a cold, then I got hit with a huge assignment at work. I also had to go to several pre-screening sessions for interviews, and then had to go to the interviews. My last one is tomorrow morning, and it's with Raytheon. It's a pretty cool job, and I might be able to stay here if I get it...

Anyway, I went running today. I ended up doing 5.86 miles in 55 minutes. I did 9:12/mi for the first half and 9:37/mi for the second. I think this had to do with the layout of S. Boulder. It sort of slopes downwards towards the north (the direction where I ran on the way out). The way back climbs back up towards the mesas in southern Boulder.

The only unpleasant part of the run was the cheese-grater action that took place on the inside of my arm. I discovered that un-Body Glided arms, ~6 mi runs, and Nike singlets can break skin. Other than that it was a great run, and I felt pretty good. I'm going to skip over my tempo runs and just do them at distance pace since I've been a little on the lazy and/or stressed side lately. I'll run off this illness weight I put on during my cold...

Now if my weather models would just run instead of dumping their core...

Run summary:
55 minutes
5.86 mi
9:24 min/mi

ugg...

2005-02-19T18:30:00.000-08:00

So, I was supposed to run 4 miles yesterday in anticipation of today's 7 miler. Neither of them happened. It's been a pretty stressful week - job interviews, trying to get some model runs going, and sending out applications and resumes. So, what happened was I didn't eat enough yesterday before I was supposed to go running. By the time I got home at 5 pm, I felt really sick. So I decided to hold off and go today for my four miler. We're having a pretty strong wind system move through, so I was going to go on the treadmill at our apartment complex.

It laster one mile. They had the heater cranked - and it sucked. So I'll just cut my losses for this 4 mile run and just go tomorrow before Mass.

Lessons learned:
(a) eat a more calorically dense lunch instead of two small sandwiches and fruit.
(b) start running in the mornings
(c) avoid the StarTrac(R) treadmill at our gym at all costs. That thing is evil...

Ever heard of demographics?

2005-02-17T15:53:00.000-08:00

I have a free subscription to Runner's World, and occasionally they have an interesting article (particularly the one on walkers at marathons). One thing that I noticed about RW is the proliferation of low-carb product advertising in there! It was pretty odd that a couple of months ago they had a Dr. Liz Applegate article saying you couldn't maintain a good workout regimen on a low carb diet, right along side adds for low-carb beer (which is just wanky ... I'd rather drink Keystone than that crap).

Anyway, low carb beer ads in a running magazine - it just ain't right.

check this, yo-

2005-02-17T09:08:00.000-08:00

Check out my wife's new blog:

trimommy

She's getting back into tris again - so watch out age groupers!

I think this is an awesome idea - it'll help me drop some weight too! I would love to get back to about 175 lbs or so. I could haul then...

Oh Forerunner, how did I run before you existed...

2005-02-16T14:07:00.000-08:00

Quite well, actually. But this little gadget is incredible! Upper and lower pace alarms! One feature I love is how it can stop the timer if it senses that you have dropped below a certain pace - which is great for trail runs where one might take pictures, drink, banter with mountain bikers, etc.

One thing I'm quite amazed with is the sheer lack of weight. It's so light - I've worn Casio G-Shock watches that seemed to be heavier. Plus it draws a nifty little map of your route. I can't wait to play with it some more. Maybe I'll see how much elevation I do on one of my runs when I do my 40 minute recovery run.

I use Macs (or Solaris workstations) exclusively, so luckily the Forerunner 101 was the perfect choice for me. Why pay extra money for features that require a ~~substandard~~ different OS like Micro$oft Windows?

Run reports

2005-02-16T09:58:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm back on the wagon after being sick. It seems that my method of recovery put about 3-4 lbs. on me, but it's winter, and I think with increased training volume, it'll come right back off. Besides, it's freaking cold outside in Colorado. Anyway, I know I blogging during work, but the head node of the supercomputer cluster I use is dead right now, so I've hit a workstop.

Monday: First day back on the road after a week off. I decided I would give my wife a well deserved break, and take John with me on my run. He has a really nice jogging stroller, and it would be fun. Things were pretty peachy until about mile 1.5. Then things got ugly- in my stomach. My stomach started to feel sort of funny and I decided that I had best turn around. What ensued was a mad spring to the public library, pushing a stroller, and doing about 8:30/mi to the bathroom. It seems that my GI tract wasn't quite up to running, and revolted. Needless to say, that run got cut short at 1.89 mi with 9:06/mi average.

Tuesday: Much better. No stomach issues. No having to run to bathrooms at public libraries and trying to push a huge stroller into a tiny bathroom. I went for a nice tempo run around southern Boulder. It was also the first full run that I was able to use my Forerunner (for those who don't know, it's a wrist mounted GPS watch). All I can say is: AWESOME.
It was so cool - and so light! It's much nicer than the old Timex/Garmin Speed+Distance set-up I used to use, and I didn't have to wear anything around my upper arm. It takes almost no time to pick up the satellites and it did a fantastic job of measuring the sections where I knew the distance. Anyway, it was a flat 40:00 minute tempo run. I averaged 8:36/mi for the run, and was quite happy. I was pretty excited, and started out too fast (sub-8:00/mi), but soon got into a good pace.

What else.. I have a little 4 miler to do today, which will be a nice break. I have a pre-selection interview tonight, so it'll relax me before I go in. It's pretty cold and windy out today, so it'll be a character building run...

Sorry...

2005-02-16T07:54:00.000-08:00

I'll post today. Much has happened in the last couple of days - I've just been really busy with my research and with applying for jobs. I have an pre-screening interview tonight - so we'll see what happens!

good while it lasted...

2005-02-13T20:24:00.000-08:00

As you may know, I got sick last weekend after a spectacular run at Washington Park. Sadly, my coming down with a cold also happened at the same time I was given a Garmin Forerunner 101. To deal with the pain of not running, I decided I would help my immune system along by eating tasty fatty foods.. Calzones, pizza, GoodTimes burgers, and plenty of other tasty things.

I'm sort of scared to get on the scale (although it looks like my body didn't change a bit), but it'll be good to get back on the road. I will give up the junky foods now that everything in my body is now happy and conflict free. I'll finally test out the Forerunner this week, plus I'll start doing some swimmming as cross training. Should be fun. I found a new race that isn't right when I'll be defending my thesis - the Platte River Half Marathon. My goal: to run it in 2 hrs or less. I think that's pretty reasonable, given that it's early spring and my times have been pretty decent (for me) lately.

living vicariously through y'all

2005-02-06T16:03:00.000-08:00

It was bound to happen sooner or later. I've finally gotten sick. I've been pretty short of breath, really tired, and generally congested. So for the next week while I recover I'll have to read about everyone else running. I want to get over this soon, so it's going to suck.

Maybe it'll get cold this week so I can go to Beaver Creek next week for some skiing for me and cookies on a plate for my wife. Apparently she discovered that if you sit in the lodge at BC they'll come around and give you free cookies. The opprotunity to people watch the fabulously wealth, knit and eat cookies proved too much - so I've been coerced into going skiing there in the next week or two.

It looks like my newly aquired Forerunner 101 will have to wait a week until it can be properly used.

I had that not so fresh feeling (in my legs)

2005-02-04T20:29:00.000-08:00

My wonderful wife Brynne suggested I go running in Washington Park (downtown Denver) today. We drove down to Denver to meet with a friend in the early evening, but before meeting, we stopped at the park.

It was a gorgeous day - mid 60's, not a single cloud in the sky, and every one was outside running, biking, playing with their dogs. Brynne walked with John while I did two laps (it's 2.2 miles around the park). What's great about Washington Park is that it's completely closed off to traffic, and it's incredibly scenic around there - old Victorian houses, the mountains off in the distance, and ponds surrounded by flower gardens. If that wasn't enough, there was also plenty of eye candy in the form of fine road frames: a couple of pimped out Colnagos, Litespeeds, Mercx, and plenty o' high end OCLV Treks. I would like to get back into road biking, but I don't have the time right now. Maybe after graduation or something like that. It would make for nice cross training during the season.

I think I did 9 min/mi today, as I was trying to take it nice & comfortable. I think my legs are still recovering from Thursday's little adventure. After the run, I refueled on some great hot chocolate and local biscotti at a nifty coffee house. It has huge, comfortable sofas, no smoking, and they play decent house music. Very mellow, and the staff, although they look like they could kick your ass, are quite nice.

Brynne also made lasagna from scratch today, too. So that just made my wonderful day even better. I think I'll have to take her to a good kniting store for Friday afternoon...

And although this has nothing to do with running, did you know that suction cups stick remarkably well to a baby's back? Better than they do to the tub...

no intervals

2005-02-03T19:25:00.000-08:00

I decided that since I went over by 30 minutes yesterday on hills, I could take today off. Went to the baby pool with the baby & my wife. Much fun - if you throw toys he splashes until he gets them. It's pretty cute.

Maybe I'll run tomorrow - if I do it'll be easy.

psyching myself up for tonight's interval workout

2005-02-03T07:25:00.000-08:00

Although I'm quite sure you've all seen this in the news (it was in Nature), some new research shows that humans are built for distance running.

Here's a link to a story about it. Between reading this article and watching Prefontaine, it's got me all fired up!

Adventure is bad planning...

2005-02-03T03:53:00.000-08:00

Since it was so warm yesterday, I decided to do some trail running. I thought that since much of White Ranch faces the east, most of my run would be pretty nice, if not a little bit muddy in parts. Plus, many of the locals out here are a pretty hardy lot, so if anything the trails would be pretty packed down.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

It was supposed to be a pretty laid back 75 minute run. The run started out nicely enough, but it should have been a warning to me when I was the only person at the trail head. I kept going, and most of the first mile and a half were pretty nice - packed snow and a little bit of mud, but nothing too bad. So, as usual, I turned off Belcher Hill and headed out to do the Longhorn/Shorthorn/Longhorn trail.

That's where the adventure began.

I was wearing shorts, because it was fairly warm. If I were to do it all over again, I would wear them again. I think I would have worn my gaiters, and taken my snowshoes and poles along for the ride, too. For the first part, it was pretty nice - packed down snow. The farther in I went, in fact, all the way to the top of the hill at 8000 ft, I was breaking trail. Not even a freaking animal broke trail there! No lion/deer/mouse/rabbit tracks - total virgin powder!

Which made for difficult running, particularly when you're doing a technical section that climbs for a long time, and you're trying to run in nearly a foot of deep untouched powder. At one point - for nearly the last mile of climbing, I decided that running was just diminishin my returns. I switched over to a quick hike and thought:

"Crap - my wife is going to be pissed at me! I'm going to be an hour late"

Luckily, she wasn't - although I had to promise not to do White Ranch again after a snow storm like this. What was an 8 mi (usually ~85 minute) run ended up taking one hour and 44 minutes. Not bad considering the depth of the powder and the fact that running uphill in some spots was like trying to drive a rear-wheel Yugo up a steep, snowy, dirt road.

The views were pretty nice:

Here's what some of the less deep sections of powder looked like:

back on the wagon

2005-02-01T20:25:00.000-08:00

Finally went running today. I've been feeling much better this week - no feelings of falling asleep at 3 pm or wanting to head off to bed at 6 pm this week. It was a quick 35 minutes at the indoor track here at the local rec center. I was running 9:07 min/mi, so maybe I'll break past my plateau and finally hit sub-9 soon.

The one annoying thing was the guy skipping rope in the middle of track. Other than that, the iPod Shuffle made my run seem like nothing. I'll have to remember this for more indoor runs. The best part was heading to the kids' pool with the baby after the run for a nice half-hour of daddy/baby time in the heated waters. He's quite the social butterfly at the gym.

Please pray

2005-02-01T19:14:00.000-08:00

For Pope John Paul II. Perhaps you are not Catholic, or maybe you are. He is a good and holy man, and is in a Roman hospital for a very bad flu. Please pray for his Holiness and a quick recovery.

Thanks!

so tired...

2005-01-27T18:34:00.000-08:00

So I missed my long run today (75 minutes). I've been waking up before 6 am each day to go in for a campus career fair. Tomorrow I have an interview with the US Census bureau at 0830. I really would love to work for them as a mathematical statistician or cartographer.

I'll go running tomorrow after the craziness has ended.

Yesterday, instead of going for a short 30 minute run my wife and I went hiking with the baby at White Ranch. I carried the baby in the backpack a la Yoda & Luke in ESB. We ended up hiking about that, but my wife got sick half-way in because she forgot to eat lunch. I guess that she thought that chocolate mousse had more calories than it does.

It was pretty fun though, and my wife asked me: "you actually run here? I would cry if I had to run this". Guess I have a masochistic streak in me.

interval day

2005-01-25T19:30:00.000-08:00

I tried doing intervals, but didn't know that you aren't supposed to go all out. I think I hit my LT in the middle of the second set, and I had to stop. My legs felt like they were seizing up. Next time I'll wear my HRM and watch it. In retrospect I think had the pace right the first interval (~ mid 7:00 min/mi). I tried to push it into the 6:00 min/mi pace, and therein was my mistake.

I'll do some research before I do my intervals next week. Thankfully I have a 75 minute endurance pace run.

Oh, and if you ever get the chance - taking a bath with an infant is one of the greatest experiences on earth. My son has started figuring out that he can splash the water. My bathroom has been invaded by small colorful plastic toys.

Interesting Idea

2005-01-23T20:06:00.000-08:00

I've started reading I'm Running out of Lifetimes. I like her idea of taking some photos and measurements of myself and posting it on here. It'll be interesting for me to look at this in a while and see how my body has changed. I'll try to use this as an excuse to get the combo body fat measurement/VO2 max test for $50 at a gym in Lakewood.

I think publicily humiliating myself on here might be a good impetus to run more, too.

White Ranch Open Space

2005-01-23T15:56:00.000-08:00

Today was the day for my 2 hour long run. Instead of running on the road like I've been doing lately, I decided to hit the trail. White Ranch Open Space is a beautiful sprawling county open space park with 20 miles of runnable trails. It varies from high plains carriage trails that are wide and rocky to narrow single track with brutal climbs over large sharp rocks. All the while, you have gorgeous views of the plains and mountains. The one thing about White Rance is the climbing. There's lots of it.

My run today started out with the aptly named Belcher Hill Trail:

From there you can see North Table Mountain (which I happen to live on the side of):

Belcher Hill Trail is aptly named because it's a steady 2 mile climb (and it's not even the worst of the climbing). It's an unrelenting ascent and unsheltered from the sun, but it's not nearly the worst part of the climbing (there's plenty more).

Imagine 2 miles of nothing but this:

There were a couple sections that I had to walk, because it was just too rocky and steep. I'll keep running it for the next couple weeks and hopefully I'll be able to make it. There's a trail race here in September that I'm hoping to do. The nice thing about the second half of the run is the descent. You get to bomb down the trail, and get wierd looks from the hikers.

I finally finished the run. I was met by my wife and son:

The mark of a good run:

It was sunset when I finished, and I was able to get a picture of some Mie scattering from the sunlight over the mountains.

To the north, you can see towards Boulder, and see the slip strike fault between Golden and Boulder.

Summary:
distance: 10.25 mi
pace: 11.30 min/mi
vert. distance: ~2500 ft (up)

little rant

2005-01-21T21:40:00.000-08:00

I weighed myself lately, and for the last couple months I've been stuck at 190 lbs. No matter how much I run or how little I eat, I stay at this weight (I'm 5'10"). I've even lost my belly, but the weight has figured out how to hide on my body.

When I was finishing up college, I weight 165 lbs, but was unheathily skinny - you could see my ribs and I always getting strep throat.

I'm wondering how much of my inability to get past this plateau is really that I've started eating more nutritious foods than I did in college. Could it be that I have muscle in my legs?

I guess I'll have to go and get my body fat tested. The lowest I ever got to was 8 % in 1998. I peaked out at around 15 % two years ago. I'm wondering where I am now. It would be interesting to see where I've come from last year. The first two years of graduate school really did a number on my body.

running with the cows

2005-01-21T21:29:00.000-08:00

I did today's run at South Boulder Creek Open Space-

As you can see, it's at the base of the foothills and is a pleasant run through semi-rural southern Boulder county. Plus, it's really flat, which is sort of rare here right along the foothills. My run was a 55 minute overdistance workout.
What was great about it was my pace increased from my last week of runs. Today I was able to run 6.2 miles in 55 minutes (or 10 km). I guess that works out to about 8:52 min/mi, which is very good for me (I'm not built like most runners - I wrestled in high school and played rugby in college). When I started back up again last spring I was doing 11 min/mi, so I think I'm moving up nicely. That's quite a drop from my last long run (12 mi) that I think I did at about 9:30 min/mi on a very hilly course. We'll see what I can do tomorrow. I'm still not sure if I should do my long run on trail or do it on the road. I'll wait and see what the weather will do tomorrow.

Anyway, here's a picture of the Flatirons from the trail:

The South Boulder Creek trail goes through active grazing space, so I snapped a picture of some friendly cows along the way at mile 5:

There was also an old barn from the early farming days of Boulder:

What was really nice about this run was the weather today, too. About 65F with very light winds. I was able run in shorts and a coolmax t-shirt.

Today started nicely, too. Here's the sunrise from this morning over North Table Mountain:

Today's Run summary:
time: 55 minutes
distance: 6.2 miles
pace: 8:52 min/mi
measured with GPS

Running flava!

2005-01-20T21:21:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to a place that makes Pimp Cups.

I'm thinking of getting one that says Runna (like playa).

Or get one that says Pre.

2005-01-20T20:29:00.000-08:00

I'm using the Serious Training for Endurance Athletes training plan, so I found out that I wasn't allowed to run today since my snowshoeing counted for 2 hours of overdistance training. Sweet! Instead, my family and I traded in my digital camera (which had been deleting pictures) for a new Olympus. So, I will post pics of my runs now that I don't have to send anything in for repairs.

Tonight I did something I consider risky: carried my baby around a store for 15 minutes with no diapere on. He liked it pretty well and cooed the entire time. Sigh- I remember when I thought doing something risky was:

a) hucking 15 foot cornices on my snowboard
b) building huge ramps and snowboarding down them on St. Mary's Glacier
c) bouldering and scambling scree fields with my friend Karl.

Now it's walking around with a baby whose going commando. I'm running towards old age.

A quick poll

2005-01-19T20:12:00.000-08:00

For my 120 minute run this week - should I run it on the trail or do it on the road?

What do you think?

finally running

2005-01-19T18:42:00.000-08:00

Went for a nice run this evening. It's been around 60F out here in the front range due to a nice high pressure ridge sitting over the Rockies. Did 65 minutes - I tried using my Tailwind distance meter, but it wasn't working (said I was doing 22:50 min/mi). Luckily my iPod Shuffle worked flawlessly during the entire run. I think I was probably doing about 9:30 min/mi today. We'll see tomorrow...

rest day

2005-01-18T20:57:00.000-08:00

I decided that after two hours of snowshoeing & carrying a baby - perhaps it was the smart thing to take today off. Tomorrow: endurance pace workout for an hour...

cross training

2005-01-17T19:27:00.000-08:00

Well, I had photos, but my digital camera deleted them when I got home. The family and I went snowshoeing at Eldora nordic center. We went for two hours and it was pretty awesome. There was plenty of climbing, and I was fortunate enough to tow the baby behind me in his trailer. He slept the entire time, even when we were doing some crazy tail crossings and portages across rocky sections.

Want a good workout? Haul a 6 month old in a trailer at 9000 ft for about a mile.

Rayleigh scattering at it's best

2005-01-17T06:26:00.000-08:00

I'm going running later today, but my wife woke me up to get some pictures of the clouds (I'm a meteorologist). Here's this mornings clouds: some cirrus, mountain wave clouds (to the west), and cumulus clouds. It's red because of Rayleigh scattering: all the shorter wavelengths get scattered out by the photons passing through a lot of the atmosphere. All that's left is the longer wavelengths:

These three are facing SE. You can see some cirrus in the top of the photos.

Here's the top of the mesas here in Golden:

Finally, facing west towards Mt. Galbraith open space (which has some awesome trail running - very technical in parts with 2000' of vertical in 4 miles.

not a running type day

2005-01-14T22:33:00.000-08:00

Well, my schedule got the better of me today, and I missed my run. No matter - with my change in career goals (MS vs. PhD), I'm going to change my goals for this spring. I don't really have the time to do a 50 km - or rather, train for one. Instead, I'll try to focus on half-marathons and trail races. I'll have to find a cool half-marathon out here in the Front Range to do in a couple of months. I might be able to get my time below 9:10 for it (which would put me sub 2 hours). It'll take some playing around with my training plan, but perhaps I'll be able to do more races in the half-marathon range.

Anyway, here are some picture of my new iPod Shuffle:

It's hard to believe that music actually comes out of that thing. There's a warning on the Apple page not to eat them. I'll take it out for a 6 mile test run tomorrow and report how it works out...

Excellent...

2005-01-14T13:05:00.000-08:00

I was given some money for my birthday from my mom, which I used to buy an iPod Shuffle.

Needless to say, it absolutely rocks. Three quarters of an ounce and half a GB of memory. I think it'll make today's 5 mile overdistance workout much more fun.

I'll post pictures of it tonight, including my nifty black toe.

2005-01-13T11:02:00.000-08:00

Too bad my baby can't go on long runs with me:

2005-01-13T10:57:00.000-08:00

my wife rocks!

off day

2005-01-13T10:48:00.000-08:00

I had a pretty bad case of insomnia last night, and I couldn't fall asleep until 2 am. It really sucked. So, instead of doing intervals, I'll just be existing and slumming it at my basal metabolic rate today. I'll go for a nice 4 or 5 miler tomorrow, unless I have the same problem tonight.

Lot of stuff happened yesterday, and that combined with a big cup of coffee in the morning might have combined to keep me awake last night - even after a most gnarly run. I decided to get a MS and get started on my career as opposed to keep going on the Ph.D. I guess my heart wasn't in it any more. I love the atmospheric sciences, and I really hope I can get a job at one of the labs around here or with the government doing what I'm doing now. It's just that every time I thought about writting grants or proposals or trying to keep up with publications, a little voice inside of me just went: why?

Anyway, I feel pretty good about my decision. I'm starting to poke around and look for jobs in the atmospheric sciences. I really enjoy programming, and this is a great field for that sort of thing. Plus, I'll get a head start on my career. I've heard of a couple MS scientists that made more than Ph.D's because they were able to start at their jobs sooner.

C'mon government job!

"Rocky Flats High" with apologies to John Denver

2005-01-12T21:35:00.000-08:00

The Denver metro area (I work in Boulder) got hit with a snowstorm today, so I took the car up to work. This of course meant I was able to go trail running after work! However, by noon the fog had lifted and the snow stopped, and here are two pictures from the back of the building where I work:

Anyway, after work, I decided to go trail running. Originally, I was going to go running at White Ranch Open Space, which is an expansive foothills open space area with lots of climbs and fairly technical sections. It was getting dark by the time I was able to leave work (I was finalizing stuff on my Masters Degree), so I that I didn't want to chance any trailside meetings with mountain lions, so I decided to do a run not quite so tucked away in the mountains. I would love to see a bear one day, but I would be a happy man if I never came across a mountain lion. Particularly since nearly all mountain lion attacks have been on trail runners out here in Colorado.

So, I decided to run at Dowdy Draw open space outside Boulder, about 10 minutes away from work and on the way home. It's also near Rocky Flats: your one stop shop for nuclear bomb triggers and enriched Plutonium.

I decided to do the run for time and not measure pace and distance. It sort of makes the run more fun for me, that way. One thing I like about trail running, especially out here is that it makes me remember why I love running. It also makes me wonder why I'm doing something that makes my legs hurt so much. But life is full of contradictions, I suppose.

Here's a before shot:

Anyway, Dowdy Draw starts out with a gentle climb and then a nice steady flat section that lasts about 0.75 miles. After a couple of cattle gates, it becomes a nice single track section along a ridge, and descends with a couple of switchbacks into a valley. Not many people had been down there since the storm, so I was able to hit plenty of virgin snow in there. It obscured many of the rocks and made for soft foot landings, but there were a couple sections where you really had to watch it, because there was a big rock under a little covering of snow. I kept going down the single track, and then did a stream crossing! It was pretty cool because all the rocks we snow covered and icy, so it made for an interesting break in the running. I decided to turn around at 30 minutes, so as to give a little bit of time to climb back up to the trailhead.

Anyway, I made it back at exactly 60 minutes. I had no idea of my pace, but it was a great run. You know it's a pretty good run when you have icicles on your shoelaces.

I was pretty worn down after all that climbing and descending, and I think I kind of looked like I was doing bong hits rather than trail running after I was done:

All in all, awesome run, beautiful conditions, and nice snowpack. What I like about this part of the front range is that it hasn't been settled. There are little trees and shurbs sparsely scattered around, but for the most part it's all tall grasses and rocks around. I imagine it's what it looked like out here before there were many people out here.

Run: 60 minutes
Pace: ??
Distance: It's a trail run! Who cares!

inactive recovery

2005-01-11T21:32:00.000-08:00

I thought about going for a run today as part of an active recovery, but then I decided to just shift my training schedule by a day. Besides, I've found that running on Monday afternoons sort of makes for a nice way to start the week. Before that I had been doing my +10 mi runs on Sunday. But between getting downtown to Mass and playing with the baby, it made for a stressful day.

But I digress. Instead, my legs decided that today would be my resting day. But I will leave you with some pictures. One of my socks that I really like after yesterday's dusty run:

And here's a sunrise picture I took:

Have a good night, and I'll fill you in on my run tomorrow. I think it'll be a trail run, but I don't know where. Maybe even a snowy trail run, which are quite fun.

Tour de Golden

2005-01-10T18:44:00.000-08:00

I'm fortunate to live at around 6000', in the town of Golden. It's where they make Coors, and the town has a permanent scent of hops. Ok, maybe I'm not fortunate that the town where I live smells of beer, but it is at a nice altitude that makes training nice. It's great when I go down to Chicago or somewhere low where I can sustain 8'14" for about 8 miles.

Anyway, I went for my long run today. I've had a lot to think about lately, especially all the crap with grad school and my advisors. So, needless to say I had lots of pent up energy.

I managed to take a couple pictures with my new camera during my run. Here's a picture of Golden with lots of water vapor in the air. The photo was taken after a series of long hills (which are plentiful here in Golden):

Last weeks 11 mile run looked much the same. We got hit with about a foot of snow the next day. Here's me at 11.6 miles, looking sweaty but no worse for the wear:

It was a great run. I ran 12.49 miles in 1 hour, 58 minutes and 31 seconds. It works out to around 9'29" for the whole run, which I think is pretty good considering all the climbing one has to put up with running around here. Maybe I'll be able to break 4:00 for a marathon if I'm lucky. I'm really hoping I can break 5 hours for my 50 km race in April. I'm not a particularly fast person, so I'm hoping that my build will help me in 50 km, 100 km, and 50 mi races. I wish I was a greyhound, but alas I'm not...

don't put off writting your thesis...

2005-01-09T20:12:00.000-08:00

Today I was supposed to do a 12 mile run, but sadly I was forced to move my long run to Monday (which also happened last week) to finish part of my MS thesis. I'll tell you right now that writting a MS thesis on your birthday is a pretty crappy way to spend it. What was cool was Mass tonight at the Archbishop's service at the Cathedral, and dinner. We're lucky enough to have Good Times out here. It's a Colorado fast food restaurant that only uses free-range natural beef. Their burgers are awesome, and their fries are pretty tasty too. It was a nice way to finish off the night, and between that and the pizza last night I'll have more than made up from my deep caloric defecit of yesterday.

I'll have to try out my inertial speed meter tomorrow after I properly install it.

ack!

2005-01-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

Today started pretty well - my wife had a 5k at the Lafayette Oatmeal Festival, and did better than she expected - by 2 min/mi!

We feasted on oatmeal and oat-derived foodstuffs after the race, then went back home. Sadly, I had to return to Boulder to finish some work up, so I decided to run up there and try out to new birthday presents - my new Fuelbelt hydration system and my inertial distance/speed instrument. Unfortunately, I forgot to calibrate the instrument - then I bonked at the turn-around. I realized I probably ate under 1000 kCal today, so that explains it. That and I spent a good part of the morning walking around the town of Lafayette. So the family and I went out to get some tasty pizza - I think with the amount of pizza that was consumed tonight I won't have any problems with my 12 mile run tomorrow.

2005-01-07T20:57:00.000-08:00

Last night I decided to try trail running at night. I headed out with the Denver Trail Runners group and about 5 of us did the Red Rocks/Morrison Slide trail. I never knew that trail running snow-covered technical trails could be so fun! The only thing I would do differently - wear trail shoes.

All in all, I think I'm going to do this more often. What was particularly nice was that the guys I was running with were all quite fast, but they waited for me at the trail junctions. Hopefully running with them for the winter will kick my butt into shape.

A change in the focus of this blog

2005-01-07T20:29:00.000-08:00

I have to admit I've been pretty bad about posting anything to this blog lately. I've been preparing for my PhD comprehensive exam (in two weeks), and it's been brutal to say the least.

I'm not going to do any more stuff regarding religion, politics, etc. There are many other blogs that do those subjects and do them quite well - much better than I ever could.

What I am going to write about is one of my hobbies - running. I've been running on and off since high school. It got me through some of my hardest years in college, and if it wasn't for a six mile tempo run I did in Albuquerque I wouldn't have met my wife (or have a beautiful 6 month old!).

Now running has been helping (with some help from Lexapro) keep my depression and anxiety at bay. I'm hoping to start doing ultra distance stuff in the near future. There's a run called the Greenland Trail 50k run. It might be a little longer than a marathon but it's a meager start.

Anyway, here's my newest acquisition to help me keep hydrated on these long runs building up to 50 km.

It's an awesome trail running specific hydration backpack. Plus it holds my new digital camera that I'll be using to post pictures on here of my epic runs.